Unemployment jumps in SA

The job market in San Antonio grew again in August as schools prepared for the new year, but the unemployment rate also climbed to a 25-month high as the impacts of a battered national economy reveberated through Texas.

The Texas Workforce Commission issued numbers Friday that set the area’s unemployment rate at 5 percent in August. It was 4.8 percent a month earlier and 4.1 percent in August 2007. The last time unemployment exceeded 5 percent in the area was July 2006, when it stood at 5.2 percent.

The city’s rate is the same as the state’s unemployment count for August and is better than the 6.1 percent unemployment recorded nationally, but both of those rates get adjusted for regular seasonal changes in the marketplace. The local count does not.

Chakib Chehadi, exeucitive director of Workforce Solutions Alamo, said seasonal trends were critical to August’s numbers as was the growth of the overall labor market, which includes both people working and those looking for work..

Tom Pauken, workforce commission chairman, said San Antonio, like other Texas cities, is holding up well as the nation’s economy continues to stumble through housing and credit market woes. But he said the nation’s problems has begun to affect Texas employers, and hurricane-related losses could hurt more.